Grey’s Anatomy star Kelly McCreary and fellow actress and sister Crystal McCreary divulged what it was like to act together on Thursday’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

The episode featured Kelly’s character Maggie Pierce, attempting to help Sabrina (Crystal), the niece of Dr. Richard Webber’s (James Pickens, Jr.) brother Chris. During the episode, Sabrina died from a massive heart tumor, despite Maggie’s best efforts to save her.

For both sisters, pretending that one of them would die was traumatic.

“Everyone at the table read was like, ‘Oh boy, this is going to be tough,’ and I didn’t know how that would show up,” said Kelly to Entertainment Weekly. “I’m pretty good at playing pretend, so I was like, ‘She’s playing Sabrina!’ And the way that it came up for me really did catch me off guard, which was in rehearsal of the O.R. scene. She wasn’t even in the room and I think that’s what it was. It was the opposite of what you might think: When she was in the room being Sabrina I was very convinced that she was Sabrina, but when I thought about my sister being on the table, it caught me up.”

“One of the cameramen came up to me at one point and he was like, ‘I just wanted to let you know that Kelly had a moment because she was really picturing you and she started to cry,'” said Crystal. “For myself, even, I was in video village as they took the various shots for that scene and I sat there the entire time and every time they did a new shot, I cried watching her, knowing that she was imagining it was me. That’s when it occurred to us: Our family’s going to have a hard time with this, it’s going to be hard for people who actually know us, because here we are acting it out and it’s really overwhelming.”

However, both sisters said that they felt the episode allowed them to rediscover each other’s talents, particularly during a scene that had both of their characters together in a hallway.

“We’re discovering each other and getting to know each other and each of us finding delight in one another, it was adorable and so fun to play,” said Kelly.

You can watch Grey’s Anatomy Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on ABC.

READ MORE:

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Photo: Kelly McCreary on Instagram

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